Credit: The Associated Press

FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011 file photo, anti-government protesters gathered in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, watch a screen showing U.S. President Barack Obama live on a TV broadcast from Washington, speaking about the situation in Egypt.

WASHINGTON — From Egypt to Syria to Iraq and beyond, the Obama administration is determined to show it will only go so far to help save nations in chaos from themselves.

President Barack Obama has long made it clear that he favors a foreign policy of consultation and negotiation, but not intervention, in the persistent and mostly violent upheavals across the Mideast. And even as Egypt's military overthrew its Islamist government on Wednesday, Washington maintained a measured approach to nationwide turbulence in one of the United States' most important Arab allies.